Are there rules about where you can;t get it?

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So where do you ussually get your inspiration?

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If you mean "where do you get your ideas?" the answer is everywhere. Life. The News. Any and all of the arts. Dreams, nightmares, daydreams.

I get my ideas from everywhere. I saw the trailer for the Goden Compass a couple days ago. I know nothing about the film but made some guesses as to what the story would likely be about. Someone is trying to get to the golden compass and someone else trying to stop them, and get there first.

Today I wrote a story idea based on that. Instead it is a palatinum Protractor. It is almost impoossible to keep someone from getting to it, but then you have to figure out how to use it. If you fail, you are sent back and blocked from access to it.
An engineer with physics training decides that the universe operates geometrically, not by the uncertancy theorum. He is thinking about it, needs a protractor to draw hsi concepts, ends up before the Platinum protractor, and finds the proofs for his theory. The problem is that he is now stuck, the emperor of the universe, isolated from everybody for the remander of his life, except what he can observe through the drawings he creates with the protractor.

When I write my story ideas, I show how the idea can be used. In the past several months, they are becoming short stories in and of themselves. I have tear sheet calandar pages almost everywhere I go. I get a basic concept and will write it down on them, or anything else I might have available. They are to remind me of the concept. I SELDOM edit when I get an idea. I just note them down. Of course, I remember the ideas I hae already used and some ideas come from a situation I am often in, so I remember them and don't use them since I don't have a new use for the concept.
One can use a journal instead of the papers, but the main thing is to write down your ideas, no matter how minor. I have used commercials, taking the silliness and causing them make sense.

News articles can be the start of a story. Why are all the cops getting killed? How about time travelers? How about space aleins taking over people's minds?
You might read a book or see a story where the bad guys are shooting up the area, trying to kill the escaping good guy who is also shooting up the area. Do a story about the situation from the point of view of a merchant who has to clean up the damage, or from the point of view of the law that has to investigate and try to figure out what happened and who was involved.

There's also the principle of priming the pump. If you've ever used an old timey water pump you have to pour water in to make it possible to pump water out. The idea can be applied to writing. If you are reading a lot of stuff, it can help you think of other ideas. And I'm not talking about borrowing. If I read something from a writer's perspective, I'll usually end up thinking of a tangent that could be a good story and it usually has nothing to do with what I'm reading.

It's always been that way for me. The only time I can't think up anything new is when I'm playing Nanofictionary, Once Upon A Time, or any other face-to-face playing-to-win story-telling game which uses cards to determine required story elements. For whatever reason, I stink at those...

Though now that bedtime stories with my kids has started to work that way, ("Dad, tell us a story about Batman, Robin, Superman, a jumprope, and Braniac.") maybe I should give them another try.